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Discussion: Born This Way Ball Review Thread
Member Since: 2/1/2010
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Member Since: 12/21/2010
Posts: 51,088
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This is one of those landmark moments that 90% of pop stars just never experience. And the fact that she performed "Imagine" on top of it all...
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Member Since: 5/1/2011
Posts: 9,640
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Originally posted by BoyOnBoy Wonder
This is one of those landmark moments that 90% of pop stars just never experience. And the fact that she performed "Imagine" on top of it all...
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Singing imagine just puts the EPIC factor to that show
I'm sure that stadium is totally baptised by Gaga's greatness
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Member Since: 11/24/2011
Posts: 197
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THE queen.
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Member Since: 8/24/2010
Posts: 9,422
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Slay them Gaga. Slay!
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Member Since: 11/21/2010
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Member Since: 4/25/2012
Posts: 3,085
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Originally posted by joe71941
LEGEND!
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Originally posted by YSL
You should go and make friends there.
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I should.. I'll see how things tide over tomorrow.
I'm working tuesday but I could always pull a sickie and go, I got a horrible feeling RiRi and Bey will be there as RiRi is currently stanning for Gaga (as is she for her) and Bey will be here w/ Jay but CH!
If they perform and I didn't goo..
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Member Since: 11/10/2009
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The video isn't working for me.
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Member Since: 7/9/2010
Posts: 42,506
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UK critics praise the 'Born This Way Ball'
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During a rare quiet moment in Lady Gaga's idea-splurging, two-hour show, the singer sits at a keyboard mounted on a motorcycle and talks about a record executive who suggested that her Born This Way album catered too solicitously to her fanbase's "weirdos and freaks". "They called it a niche," she says, triumphantly surveying the 55,000-strong crowd. "This is a big ****ing niche."
It's crucial to Gaga's self-image, this idea that she can be both fantastically successful and an arty subversive catering to a tribe of outcasts. Whether or not you believe that, she certainly does. The problem is squaring this rhetoric with the pragmatic demands of stadium pop. Just as her records cleave to reliable templates – Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, European trance-pop – her show ticks some familiar boxes.
So there's an expensive set constructed like a castle, enabling her to perform from various turrets as if she were Evita on the balcony. There's a squad of formidably buff dancers with whom she can flirt and grind. There are costume changes ad infinitum. And, inevitably, there is a half-baked concept that seems to involve the show taking place in a Government Owned Alien Territory (dancers wave black flags reading GOAT) prior to Gaga invading Earth and inventing a new, utopian race – although it's hard to say for sure, or indeed care.
Still, there are frequent moments of chutzpah and high-wire ingenuity. For Heavy Metal Lover she moulds herself into a cyborg motorbike and invites one of her dancers to ride her. Before Born This Way's stampeding title track, she emerges from between the legs of an inflatable pregnant version of herself, as if to say: match that, Madonna.
At times, performing in a face-obscuring insectoid helmet or banging on about GOAT, Gaga risks getting lost inside the spectacle, so the weakest part of the show is also the most revealing. Donning a fan-made T-shirt, she plays a peculiar new song about Princess Diana and Amy Winehouse called – brace yourself – Princess Die, followed by John Lennon's Imagine. It's both horribly embarrassing and endearingly sincere: a real departure from the stadium script that proves the gawky outsider line is more than just shtick. Likewise her decision to spend the hair-metal encore dancing with the kind of oddball hardcore fans that security guards are usually paid good money to keep at a safe distance. The tightly choreographed hits sound terrific, but it's when this curious star sabotages the slickness that she seems most herself.
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“Space renegade Lady Gaga has escaped,” the hologram Gaga-face floating above a giant fairytale castle informs us. “Mission: to give birth to a new race.”
There are many accusations you can throw at Gaga, but lack of ambition ain’t one. Her gigs are like rock operas, staggering tableaux strung along a loopy narrative thread.
She enters tonight on a black mechanical horse, undercutting the thumping, sparkling, industrialglam energy of “ Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)” with a funereal procession round the circular walkway that fronts the stage, head veiled and bowed like a Ringwraith as styled by HR Giger.
It’s an oddly sombre start to a pop show, as if to let you know that she doesn’t need to wow you with a big entrance. Soon, though, she’s gliding eerily across the stage on wheeled stilts, done up like an android nurse, before flinging herself into that odd, jerking-automaton dance to “Bad Romance” and “Judas”.
Especially considering her flailing fervour, her voice is a remarkable thing, sometimes a harsh bark, sometimes a rich jazzy croon. During “Telephone” she picks up a Barbie thrown on stage by a fan, casually dismembering it.
“I was never a fan of this little blonde bitch anyway, dunno about you...” An acoustic section (on a piano that’s also a cyborg motorbike, of course) is paused as she recounts how record labels told her that her sound was too niche. “Looks like a pretty big niche to me,” she says before leaning hard on the “You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one” line of (sigh) John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
She lays her outsider-queen shtick on a bit thick (and you can’t help wondering, with a bit less chat, if she might have squeezed in “Poker Face” or “Alejandro”) but if you can question its authenticity, you certainly can’t doubt her sincerity or her love for those who follow her.
The walkway encircles the “Monster Pit”, to which fans gain access not by paying golden-ticket prices but by queuing early. From it, a stream of pale and trembling teens fight back tears as their idol pulls them onstage, promises to meet them afterwards or pores over their gifts. A lucky four even get to close the show with her, romping around the circular catwalk to “ Marry The Night”.
The slavish devotion in their eyes suggests that mission to mother a new race might be near-complete.
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The Independent, 2nd review
What we've seen and heard tonight is, essentially, Lady Gaga's superhero origin story. The lasting message is that we're all free to write our own. For that, she remains the only modern pop star worthy of being talked about in the same breath as Bowie, and her rivals – Rihanna and Beyoncé – aren't fit to lick Gaga's studded six-inch heels
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It is only as 55,000 people descend on Twickenham stadium for the first of Lady GaGa's three sold-out shows that you realise just how much of an effect she's had on pop music in the last four years.
But unlike an arena gig from say, Katy Perry or Kasabian, the crowd is as diverse as the album we're all here to celebrate; the genre-bending, hectic and, at times, scarily freakish Born This Way.
First up were supporters The Darkness who were chosen by GaGa herself, no doubt for their '80s-inspired glam-rock sound which features (in parts, at least) on her own LP. The task of entertaining a supersize crowd interested in one thing only is by no means easy, but it was one Justin Hawkins and Co. seemed effortlessly well-equipped for.
Their short-but-sweet 30-minute set encapsulated their best so far; spanning from old, in-yer-face favourites 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love' and 'Love on the Rocks with No Ice' from their multi-platinum debut Permission To Land, to the brilliant 'Nothin's Gonna Stop Us' from their impressive comeback LP Hot Cakes.
Of course it was no match for GaGa, who revealed an expensive fortress setting before entering the stage singing 'Highway Unicorn (Road To Love)' whilst riding a mechanical horse dressed like something out of Alien. A confusing concept about the show taking place in a Government Owned Alien Territory (G.O.A.T) followed, though it didn't always mesh well with every songs' subject material - not that anyone cared.
Still, the eye-popping moments arrived thick and fast. In between countless costume changes, she gave birth to herself between a pair of giant inflatable legs before 'Born This Way', moulded herself into a cyborg motorbike and was ridden by a scantily clad female dancer on 'Heavy Metal Lover', and even simulated oral sex much to the crowd's delight on 'Government Hooker'.
Offsetting the slick and tight choreography was an old-fashioned sing-song and show 'n' tell segment in which she wore a fanmade t-shirt emblazoned with her new album title ARTPOP. The non die-hard fans winced as she performed a new song about Princess Diana, Whitney Houston et al called 'Princess Die', proving both awkwardly embarrassing and perfectly fitting for an artist whose appeal lies in her genuine gawkiness.
Regardless, it was GaGa who ultimately had the last laugh. Recalling a record label exec who dubbed Born This Way's lyrical content as "too niche", she replied to her captivated audience: "This is a f**king big niche."
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Manchester Evening News
As entrances go, emerging out of a gothic castle riding a black unicorn around the Manchester Arena is pretty impressive.
But that’s just the start of Lady Gaga’s astonishing feast of flamboyance in her Born This Way Ball.
There’s a costume change for every song, and boy what costumes.
First she’s a kinky alien to belt out Government Hooker, before she then sits astride a giant inflatable bottom to give birth to herself – the obvious introduction to Born This Way of course.
There’s leather hotpants, a white cage dress – at one point she’s even into a giant motorbike.
But spectacular outfits is the very least we now expect from a woman who routinely wears a lobster on her head to pick up her morning papers.
In just four years, 26-year-old New Yorker Stefani Germanotta has transformed herself into probably the world's biggest pop star.
Yet Gaga still prides herself on being a champion for the marginalised, the outsiders, the aliens – and of course her followers are her ‘little monsters’. When she plays her breakthrough 2008 hit Just Dance, she acknowledges that meteoric journey.
“Do you remember the first time you heard this song? Well, I will never forget when I first came to Manchester to play the clubs here,” she says.
Indeed she later reveals on stage, in typically colourful language, that it was us Manchester lot that inspired her to write Born This Way after her last gig here two years ago.
She says: “It was written because of you, your freedom, your passion, it meant so much to me. The foetus of this very moment began in Manchester so please enjoy the beautiful colourings of my afterbirth now.”
Like the Monster’s Ball tour which last brought Gaga to town, the Born This Way Ball has a ridiculously fantastical story weaving us through the event.
This time it seems to be something about Gaga being an alien extracting information, fashion and hairstyles before going back to the Gaga mothership.
It’s all brilliantly bonkers and high energy as she dances her little bottom off to hits like LoveGame, Telephone and Bad Romance. She also regales us with ramblings on life, love and ‘our community’.
“You are not watching a pop show, we are not dressing up, I am born and bred New York for life. Nobody up here is pretending,” she enthuses.
“I'm so sick of all this vanity in music. Let's rejoice in this psychedelic moment and this thing called music.”
The show closes with an exhilarating encore of Edge of Glory and Marry The Night.
“You are the pop art generation,” she tells us.
Is it pop? Is it art? Who knows. One thing's for sure, it's downright Gaga.
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Entertainment Focus - 4/5 stars
Dancing her socks off, engaging with the audience frequently and singing 100% live, she proved once again that she deserves the acclaim she receives across the globe. The Born This Way Ball was everything we expected from Gaga and more; creative, inspiring and filthy. Despite suffering from over-rambling at times (particularly around new song Princess Die), Gaga was thoroughly entertaining and well-worth the money her fans had paid to see her. No one puts on a spectacle like Gaga and if her next album ARTPOP delivers the hits that her previous records have, we’ll be counting down to her next UK tour.
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Watching on from a distance, the spectacle of watching Lady Gaga in one of her notoriously outlandish outfits moving in complete synchronisation with her team of accomplished dancers is certainly something to behold; her unbelievably impressive stage presence is one of the key reasons for her sky-rocketing to icon status in such a short space of time.
This show was undoubtedly a triumph, with only a few slight hiccups along the way. Lady Gaga has truly earned her title as the new leader of the pop pack, and despite the record she was touring being somewhat of a disappointment, in a live setting it comes into its own and reaches its full potential.
Lady Gaga, is first and foremost a showman; an extravagant host of a wonderful show that forces concert-goers to leave all traces of hum-drum day to day life at the door. As our packed train trundled back into central London from Twickenham, it was evident that everyone there was on a high having witnessed such a fun-filled two hours. This, if anything, is testament to Lady Gaga and her ability as a performer.
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Daily Mail - Mother Monster surpassed herself last night (Saturday) as she brought the Born This Way Ball to Twickenham in true over-the-top Gaga style.
The Press Association - Lady Gaga put on a characteristically spectacular show as she brought her Born This Way Ball to Twickenham Stadium.
Manchurian Matters - Wild, eccentric and unforgettable – Lady Gaga rocked Manchester once again and reminded us all why the music industry so desperately needs her.
Gay Times - The whole Born This Way Ball was glorious. It couldn't not be, when a castle bursts open and some of the greatest pop songs of the decade are blasted out, alongside an epic alien invasion narrative.
Metalhammer - We do stick around to see what all the fuss is about with Lady Gaga, and yes, despite whatever you may think of her music, we can confirm that she packs a stage show to rival KISS in the OTT stakes. There’s something ever so slightly edgy about her whole persona that many other pop stars just don’t seem to reach – which may explain some of the rather surprising faces we see dotted around the crowd
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Member Since: 8/30/2011
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Member Since: 5/7/2012
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Was born to perform
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Banned
Member Since: 8/26/2011
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Member Since: 6/17/2012
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Member Since: 4/3/2012
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Member Since: 3/20/2012
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UK critics are the toughest. Well done Gaga!
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Member Since: 3/22/2012
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The most acclaimed tour in history.
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Member Since: 8/1/2012
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She's only getting started
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Member Since: 7/9/2010
Posts: 42,506
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I'm so proud of her
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Member Since: 12/15/2009
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Um are we surprised though. It's freaking Gaga.
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Member Since: 8/17/2011
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well deserved
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